Review: After a near three-year absence, Fabian Kempe brings his Korridor project back to Northern Electronics. It's with a big release, too, as End of Cycle marks the producer's first full-length under the alias. After beginning with a blast of trippy, mind-altering ambient, Kempe delivers a master class in polyrhythmic electronic exploration, serving up hypnotic and off-kilter cuts that veer from dark metallic minimalism ("Integration") and dense modular dub techno ("Fundamental"), to psychedelic dancefloor intensity ("The Fall"), out-there hypno-jack ("Now Or Never"), to glacial, beat-free soundscapes designed to make the hairs on the back of your next stand on end ("Accident, I'm On The Ground").

Review: It would be fair to call Anthony Linell prolific. As one of the best, well-regarded solo acts since 2011 and founder of Northern Electronics, he's already released a trio of acclaimed albums, as well as a couple of tidy EPs all the while dishing out deep, subtle and highly textured music from his imprint. Here he ends 2018 on a high via an EP of floor-focused, modular-sounding techno workouts. There's much to admire across the four tracks, from the melancholic melodic movements, fizzing sci-fi effects and foreboding drumbeats of "Vision of the Imminence", to the dense industrial motifs and thunderous beats of peak-time slammer "Sculpting Energy". Arguably best of all, though, is opener "Therme", a hypnotic and mind-altering blast of foreboding and paranoid, off-kilter techno in which psychedelic TB-303 flourishes, spacey chords and electro-influenced drums combine to memorable effect.

Review: If you're a particularly ardent follower of the Northern Electronics phenomenon, you may have stumbled across SARS when her ?????? cassette landed on the label operated by budding graffiti artist Abdulla Rashim in 2014. Since then the rarely visible artist has surfaced once more as one half of Fodd Dod, this time in collaboration with the ever prolific Varg. Earlier in the year the pair delivered the Studie I Narhet, Langtan Och Besvikelse album to Northern Electronics, and now SARS is back but this time she is working alongside Rashim. For Those Who Strive comes draped in sweeps of gloomy pads that fit perfectly with the uneasy tension of the Northern Electronics aesthetic. The album is comprised of six tracks, all reportedly composed by SARS and Rashim in Stockholm this year before being mastered by Neel in Rome. Varg devotees fear not, for Ronnberg reportedly contributed additional production to the opening track "Stolen Scenes Of Golden Lush".